Rating: 
Summary: Almost insulting
Review: According to the authors the intended audience for this book is experienced programmers who want an in depth coverage of the material and very little if any introductory material. Sounds great, doesn't it? What they should have said was that the book is for experienced programmers who have never used Windows and never heard of, let alone used, an object oriented language. I guess they wrote this for experienced Unix shell programmers.From the beginning of the text I was very disappointed to learn that their 'deep' coverage included explaining things such as mouse clicks, double mouse clicks, how to move scroll bars in a window, and what all of those icons at the top of the IDE are (the toolbars). I found the rest of the text to be very repetitive, redundant, and they said the same things over and over again and again - not only that but they said the same things over and over, get it? At some points it was almost insulting to find out what they considered an experienced programmer didn't know. If you really are an experienced programmer then most of the first two chapters can be ignored, things like the history of the Internet are not needed as they've been covered in almost every beginner book already. About the only useful part would be the introduction to the IDE itself. After the first couple of chapters it does get better and less demeaning but is still very repetitive, sentences like, "Allowing the IDE to create this code saves the programmer considerable development time. If the IDE did not provide the code, the programmer would have to write it, which would require a considerable amount of time." Are scattered throughout the book, often entire paragraphs repeat entire preceding paragraphs. The book does have a lot of code examples to illustrate the current topic however a lot of it could be eliminated: as an experienced programmer the reader should know what a for loop is and a while loop. A simple explanation of how they work in C# would have sufficed. The full-blown code examples that they give, along with detailed explanations of the code, are just wasted. If you're an experienced programmer then you also don't need the 5-page (5 page!!!) example of how to calculate compound interest that is better suited to a beginner's book. Just tell me how to use the various structures in C# and then give me some detail on the advanced topics. The authors seem to have tried to write a book for every possible type of experienced programmer and in doing so have added quite a bit of material that simply isn't need for the majority of them. They made the book appealing to a very narrow audience of 'experienced programmers'. In fact, with a little bit more introductory material, this would be an excellent beginner book. In the over 1300 pages of text the authors do cover a lot of material, the problem is that, had it been written concisely, or written to the audience that they specified, it would have been half of the size it currently is. The material coverage seemed superficial and ill explained. I honestly did not enjoy reading this book; at times I was genuinely insulted by some of the explanations and code samples.
Rating: 
Summary: Really Good book
Review: As a professional VB developer of 10 years I was looking for a decent book that would get me started on the .NET enviornment. I chose C# as my programming language so that I could switch between C# and Java later on if need be. This book is a good book that takes you from a refresher course in basic C(#) syntax, OO concepts and brings you into the world of .Net programming. It touches almost every aspect that someone would need to know to be an "intermediate skilled developer in C#". This book is for those who have basic programming background and want to get into C# programming with .Net. Touches ADO.Net ASP.Net, Web Services, Multithreading, Networking. The appendix ranges from A-N and covers a wide range of topics. Overall a good book and I am pleased with it.
Rating:
Summary: C#.NET Jump-Start
Review: As an experienced Microsoft Access VBA programmer, I purchased "C# for Experienced Programmers" to get up to speed in C# quickly because that is where that I see my career heading. I read the book from cover to cover. It covers the essentials of C#, as well as .NET concepts, in a straightforward, logical manner. The book highlights valuable tips, observations, and best practices throughout it that help smooth out the .NET learning curve. Although some chapters cover concepts that are familiar to experienced visual programmers, you would expect from the book's title that it would not get bogged down with beginning, "how-to-program" topics and it doesn't. The bulk of the book is devoted to the use of syntax, namespaces, and classes unique to the .NET framework including ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Web Services, and XML. Due to its immenseness, no one book can cover every nuance of .NET. If a reader wants to cover a topic in depth, this book provides references to additional resources at the end of most chapters. The numerous code examples in this book work. The concepts presented in code can be applied to real world situations, often with very little or no modification. The book, having been read, now provides a great reference as I begin to put the knowledge that I gained from it into practice. I recommend this book to professional programmers that want a jump-start into the "Brave New World" of C# .NET programming.
Rating:
Summary: THE BSET AS 'HOW TO PROGRAM' BOOKS
Review: First i don't agree with the other reviews that gives 1 star for the book,i didn't read it but i read C# how to program and alomost the same content but with more for beginners,it's a great book and covering the aspects on .NET,this book not for beginners,i think it's for the intermediate level,i like the way that Dr.Paul and Dr.Harvey write the book,they don't leave any area without covering it 100%,after finishing the book you will be read for the bible of C# ('C# And The .NET Platform, Second Edition') for my great author ANDREW TROELSEN,he's a great expert in authoring a expert books,
Rating:
Summary: Great book covering all aspects of the language
Review: I agree with everybody that's been questioning the title of "For Experienced Programmers." As a college student studying computer science, the intro chapters covering C# basics (like variables and control structures) seem pretty redundant for anybody that's ever programmed before. After these initial chapters, however, this book shines. It does a very good job of covering both the syntax of C# and the libraries of the .NET framework. The chapters on ASP.NET and ADO.NET are very good introductions to topics that (if one is serious about learning them) require a whole book to teach. If you don't mind a couple redundant chapters, this is a great book to learn C# from.
Rating:
Summary: Great book covering all aspects of the language
Review: I agree with everybody that's been questioning the title of "For Experienced Programmers." As a college student studying computer science, the intro chapters covering C# basics (like variables and control structures) seem pretty redundant for anybody that's ever programmed before. After these initial chapters, however, this book shines. It does a very good job of covering both the syntax of C# and the libraries of the .NET framework. The chapters on ASP.NET and ADO.NET are very good introductions to topics that (if one is serious about learning them) require a whole book to teach. If you don't mind a couple redundant chapters, this is a great book to learn C# from.
Rating:
Summary: Not really for experienced programmers....
Review: I agree with several of the reviewers here who state that this book is not really meant for experienced programmers. The first few chapters, including section 1.2 "History of the Internet and World Wide Web" are REALLY not necessary. There's a nice intro to the IDE, but you can get that from the Tutorials that come with Visual Studio .NET. The chapters on control structures, methods, object-based programming, etc. could be covered by putting them in a section simply showing the syntax. An experienced programmer, especially one coming from C++ or Java should already understand the basics. I was really looking for much more in-depth information that I was able to obtain from this book. It's probably good for beginning programmers, or those who have not programmed in C++ or Java before, as it does cover the beginning topics well. Despite the fact that the book isn't named well - the examples are very good (as they are in most Deitel books).
Rating:
Summary: Not really for experienced programmers....
Review: I agree with several of the reviewers here who state that this book is not really meant for experienced programmers. The first few chapters, including section 1.2 "History of the Internet and World Wide Web" are REALLY not necessary. There's a nice intro to the IDE, but you can get that from the Tutorials that come with Visual Studio .NET. The chapters on control structures, methods, object-based programming, etc. could be covered by putting them in a section simply showing the syntax. An experienced programmer, especially one coming from C++ or Java should already understand the basics. I was really looking for much more in-depth information that I was able to obtain from this book. It's probably good for beginning programmers, or those who have not programmed in C++ or Java before, as it does cover the beginning topics well. Despite the fact that the book isn't named well - the examples are very good (as they are in most Deitel books).
Rating: 
Summary: Too much coverage; too little details
Review: I bought this book because I used the C++ book by Deitel and Deitel 10 years ago, and I still use it for reference. That was a great book, this is just awful. Except for the first few chapters on language semantics, the book is a horrible mish-mash of Developer Studio auto-generated code, with the author partly trying to explain the auto-generated code and partly trying to explain concepts. I wanted to learn the semantics of ADO.NET. Didn't get very far, because the book wants to describe how to drag and drop controls from the ToolBox to create OleDBConnections. Then I tried taking the other approach - I sat with Developer Studio in front of me and tried following what the author was trying to explain - didn't get very far on that either - because there is no description of how to use the datagrid. You are sort of left off in the middle! The datagrid is explained very briefly in another chapter on ASPX - not helpful when you are trying to learn ADO. This is sort of true for almost every chapter in the book.
The book might have been a good one had the author stuck to one approach - raw code OR just an explanation of how to use the IDE.
I would strongly recommend against buying this book. Get the O'Reilly book by Jason Liberty - thats a really good book on language semantics that is very clean, crisp and explains the idiosyncracies of the language very nicely - with little notes on how things are different from Java and C++. Even the $10 "C# Complete" book by Sybex is a better buy than this (I have that too, and enjoyed reading it much more than this).
Rating: 
Summary: Not for experienced programmers - very basic
Review: I had bought this book hoping to acquire some C# skills, already having experience in Visual Basic and C++. Unfortunately, the title of this book is misleading as it covers very basic topics - stuff any experienced programmer would already know. For example, two paragraphs are wasted explaning that "files" are what programs use for long-term storage - duh!!! The level of this book is almost insulting! This book may be good for someone just learning to program, but anyone with more than a year of experience should not be fooled by the title.
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